The FBI El Paso corruption case keeps humming along. The latest conviction, that of Antonio “Tony” Dill, a lobbyist, made headlines last week. He plea-bargained out, admitting to bribing a member of the El Paso County Commissioners Court. Link chart (below) is appropriately updated.

I’d link to a good El Paso Times article from May 29th on U.S. District Judge Frank Montalvo’s disclosure that ‘more than 80 “persons of interest” have been linked to the investigation, including 35 past or current public officials, 13 lawyers and three current or former judges,’ but the Times’ extraordinarily-excellent archive system hides articles faster than the Air Force hid the Roswell alien bodies, and you can’t read the article out of the archives, or Google it, to save your alien body-hiding life.

Nonetheless, the center-of-gravity in this Venn Diagram-like arcade of corruption appears to be the odd construct known as the El Paso County Commissioners Court.

Newspaper Tree, which has a functioning archive system, reports on the Dill plea here.

The Old Prospector asked me by cellar phone the other day what the heck a lobbyist does anyway. “How does he make money off of urging people to do stuff?” OP asked.

“I don’t rightly know,” I said. “But if I urged you to lay off the cheladas at Acetunas would you give me five dollars?”

I couldn’t tell if the gurgling, snorting sounds coming out of the phone were laughter or anger.

Meanwhile, back on May 12th, Newspaper Tree’s David Crowder was trying to, in more cerebral terms than the Times staff had done previously, argue for more openness in the case. Well, that’s 3213 words a reader will never get back in his or her lifetime. OP told me on the phone that anytime media argues for more access, it just means they’re lazy.

“I know a thing or two about digging for gold,” he said, in a conspiratorial tone of voice that suggested he was talking to me out of a stall in the men’s room of a nearby bar on Doniphan. “And I ain’t never asked the guvmint to pint me towards the goal. I found what I found through my own hard work.”

I’d link to another Times article on Dill being out on bail quicker than you can say “Commissioners Court,” but hell, it’ll be “archived” soon enough.

“Archiving” by the Times is just another way citizens get El Paso’d around here.

OP later texted me from Acetunas. He was between sets in a karaoke showdown, having just won the narcocorrido competition before heading into the single-elimination Bee Gees Are Back retro-round. ‘Don Kirkatrick is blowing thng out of prportion.’ OP still hasn’t mastered texting on his Blackberry.

I texted him back: ‘Gt on ur mule and go hme.’ I’m no Blackberry hero either.

So here we go with another updated El Paso Corruption Link Chart:

To be fair, the El Paso Times covered the local Democrat caucus mess — you know, the confusion, poor planning, reactions of irritated voters, and the general infighting and raucousness that typically accompanies anything associated with the Party of the People. Because locally, and nationally, the people in that Party are usually confused, out of step, irritated, pugnacious and raucous.

In other words, if you want to understand why so many people in the world can’t stand the Ugly American, you have to understand what underpins the Ugly American. It ain’t the stench of Chico’s Tacos food on his/er lips, that’s for sure.

Well, it’s not like Americans hide it anyway. The whole Dem mess — locally and nationally — is widely played out in MSM for all the world to see (and avoid). Somehow, Americans have built a nation that not only no longer seeks to hide/avoid/change its juvenile habits, but a nation that rides passports and airplanes overseas to celebrate them in the face of people who are often more politically-astute, and who don’t wear tennis shoes to the Louvre.

You could Google it. Just look at the mess Howard Dean & Co have created in Michigan and Florida. Talk about a lack of vision, i.e., a vision that Hillary would end up with something less than an annointment as the Dem candidate.

If the Dems can’t plan three months ahead for contingencies like Obama, how are they going to plan for fighting terrorism three years from now?

I suppose they could just eliminate tax breaks, so there’s a war chest to cover political shortsightedness.

Oh wait. That just happened, though surely a veto is coming.

So the Times covered the El Paso Democratic Caucus Ca-ca, and it did so here. Adriana Chávez wrote all about it. There was poor organization (though that’s really an El Paso thing, not limited to Democrat movers-and-shakers), whacked-out screaming Obama supporters in their filthy politically-charged T-shirts (tsk, tsk), and “mass confusion,” whatever that means these days.

OK — it means when sun-loving, Chicos taco-sucking locals have to play on a state or national level, they don’t have the tools, training, protocol or education to compete.

Outsiders visiting El Paso already know all that. For that matter, carpetbagging hero wannabes, like Dee Margo, and his stagemaster Guv Perry, a man who never met a wayward border town into which he wouldn’t like to stick his political pinky, know that.

Possibly to help soften the rising (?) sense of urgency over local Democrat incompetence, Times reporter Ramon Bracamontes launched a journalistic missile on March 6th, acknowledging and then glossing over the mass hysteria confusion during the caucus, noting that voter turnout in El Paso was the highest in 40 years. Good for El Paso, though we’ll see how good it is in November, when either Hillary or Obama is dispatched, and memories (or not) of the caucus still ring in the brainpans of the honest, hard-working, raise-taxes-now-dammit blue collar crowd that always votes Democrat on the border, no matter how much that hurts.

Addendum: Of course, at the time of the writings, the Chico’s Tacos shack local tradition on McRae hadn’t been shuttered, so the public was looking for something to think about, and local MSM outlets were looking for something to write about.

Let’s give appropriate props to the El Paso Times for filling in a news gap.

(golf claps)

And now the Times has gone above and beyond local expectations by filling folks in on the real political story of 2008. While the Democrat meltdown over Michigan and Florida, and superdelegate defections, is making national headlines, El Pasoans are now (thankfully) keenly aware that the GOP in nearby Alaska is having a meltdown. (Hat-tip: Dan Joling, AP writer, appearing in your local rag, courtesy of editor Don Flores.)

And now you know why you shouldn’t be upset about that whole El Paso Democrat caucus thing anymore.

Whew. For a minute there, we were worried that the Democrat Party was off-track.

UPDATE: Stop the ACLU notes a “moonbat meltdown” at Daily Kos.

And, Burnt Orange has Hillary worked up over Texas caucuses, with a clear threat to cause a delay at the state convention. You see, Obama has more caucus delegates — whoops.

Well, well.

EL PASO FBI CORRUPTION CASE UPDATE:
County Commissioner Dan Haggerty ponders the meaning of his existence and how said existence may have triggered the ongoing investigation. Haggerty recalls his contacts with the FBI back in the day, which seemingly started out as chit-chat sessions initiated by the FBI. Yeah, the FBI routinely calls up politicos to chit-chat because, you know, that’s how they like to spend taxpayers’ money. I wonder if any politician is so naive anymore and, after wondering, I doubt it.

Frank Apodaca, president and CEO of Access HealthSource Inc., got put on paid leave, likely due to the ongoing investigation. The parent company of Access HealthSource, Inc., Access Plans USA is reportedly conducting its own independent investigation.

Newspaper Tree notes that business goes on as usual inside the El Paso County Courthouse. NT seems like a decent enough online rag but, honestly, “spending the morning walking the halls and riding the elevators of the courthouse” isn’t exactly working towards establishing one’s superior journalistic bona fides.

Newspaper Tree also reports on the government’s attempt to disqualify El Paso attorney Mary Stillinger from representing three clients related to the ongoing corruption case.

Keeping the story hot, I guess, El Paso Times reports that County Commissioner Miguel Terán will not resign. Because, you know, he’s not been charged or convicted of anything. OK.

CONTENTION IN EL PASO NOT ALL RELATED TO THE FBI CORRUPTION CASE: On 03 July, a Border Patrol agent was investigating a report of illegal migrants in the vicinity of Hill and Ninth Streets. Something happened down a manhole and the BP agent fired in self-defense, wounding one. The contention is the result of the involvement of the Border Network for Human Rights, a leftist group with an office down at 1101 E. Yandell in El Paso. A few first- and second-hand accounts by Barrio Segundo residents make an El Paso Times article, with Louie Gilot’s byline. To his credit, Gilot notes the number of attacks on BP agents in the area this year: 59. Generally, according to their website, Border Network for Human Rights agitates for “basic human rights” — which sounds good to college kids — like legalization, healthy communities and human mobility. But BNHR doesn’t talk about who funds the bill. Right now the bill is paid by Americans. BNHR does not agitate for reduced attacks on Border Patrol agents, for the fiscal responsibility of educating Mexican kids in El Paso public schools by the citizens of Juarez, for equal access to Juarez schools and health care by El Pasoans, or for that matter, the right to drive around Juarez shopping without fear of murder, kidnap or robbery, as happens right across the border. I guess that’s a POE Bridge Too Far for BNHR, and it telegraphs its Leftist agenda. I’d watch my wallet if a BNHR Guevarista walked up to me.

MORE CONTENTION: Illegals are getting uppity with more than hapless Border Patrol “rocking” victims these days. Michelle Malkin links to Elvira Arellano’s announcement of a “campaign of resistance” against the US government. Who is Elvira Arellano? She’s a Mexican activist, an illegal, and a sanctuary seeker since she’s been hiding out in a church in Chicago for who knows how long. I’d think that a threat to “bring the government to a halt” warrants a raid of that church by any law enforcement entity whose members swear to “support and defend the Constitution of the United States.” Happy Fourth of July, Elvira “FOB” Arellano.

CHURCH LADY REPORTS: On a happier, errr, more sacreligious note, seems the Roman Cathloic Mass has gotten a bit more enlightened recently. What’s next, a smoking lamp, a Tiki statue and retro-cool Members Only jackets worn by parishoners?

SHE’S NOT GOING TO BE ELECTED ANYWAY: Hillary a felon? Say it ain’t so.

IN MEXICO: Was it a flying witch? Or merely a promo for the new Harry Potter movie?

ISLAMADMINISTRIVIA: A macho, woman-hating Muslim cleric tries to flee in a burka. He didn’t want to meet 72 virgins in Paradise, apparently: he wanted to be one. How fine it is to lay the smackdown on women in Islam, and then use their identity to escape justice. I’d ask BNHR about Muslim treatment of women, because I think Pakistan has borders, I’m sure I’d only hear crickets in response.

“OFFICER’S KID”: That was a slur among military kids back in the day, and maybe today, too. Military officers had the worst-behaved kids on any base or post, or so it seemed. It was a stereotype: the successful, well-paid, college-educated servicemember and his/her crap, sluggish, juvenile delinquent spawn. These days, I guess that stereotype transmogrifies nicely to politicians.

ABOUT THAT DINING OUT EXPERIENCE: Gotta love it. Not. Not when waiters and waitresses are morons. The most hit-or-miss part of a dining experience, besides whether you’re paying $50 for a burned filleted scallop with a stale chive on top because the chef is drunk, is the wait staff. They set the tone of the meal. Or don’t. They get tipped, or don’t, depending on your perception of how they perform. So there is Bitter Waitress, a site that argues for good tips for good service, and tells great tales along the way.

And then there’s this attitude. Rule #1: Never leave less than a 20% tip. It’s “tipping poorly” if you have a problem with anything, according to 86 Bad Tips. Including sluggish, forgetful, annoying, stumbling, snot-dripping, angry, failed, besotted wait staff. Well, I guess the red, black and yellow colors of the web page tip you to the militant attitude of its host.

Here’s another waiter blog.

And another.

Here’s an article that will make you end your dining-out experience and just cook at home.

LOL THIS: You’ve heard of LOL Cats. Now get ready for LOL terrorists. My entries are here.

Arrogant MSM berk and advanced chimpanzee: